-Perfidy-
by Sabacc
Summary: The Queen of Reptites falls before the Ioka Clan's chief. Great tragic story. Directly interpreted from the game.


  
My first, and hopefully not last, fanfic. Comments are appreciated.  


-Perfidy-  
By Sabacc

  
"How, how, how could I have been defeated? How did the filthy apes manage to triumph over me? The stick? Could the stick have helped them? Maybe it really was a 'Geit Kii,' just like they said...No! That's preposterous! No lying human would speak so readily! And yet...and yet..."  
  
Here she was, lying on the ground, wounded inside and out, wondering about her future - more accurately, her planet's future. She had been so confident that her greatest creation, the Black Tyranno, would exterminate the apes once and for all. Simply existing had never been enough for Azala; she had always craved for more, and demanded only the best for herself and her people. It was she who developed the Reptites' society, she who swore to protect the planet, and she who led the first attacks on the humans decades ago. Perhaps because of the strength of her desires she had thought of herself as a creature to whom more was permissible than to others.  
  
"They will destroy it..." she thought. "They will taint it, just as they have always done. But soon, Azala, soon justice will reign from the heavens!" She shivered from the cold. "So this is what it feels like to be betrayed, by the one you tried to protect, no less!" Her mind was unhinged. It was incomprehensible as to where she had gone wrong. She had always set the planet ahead of her own intentions, and strove tirelessly to eliminate the groups of humans which had infested the planet's forests. Azala was confident that at the crushing of the Laruba Clan, the Ioka Clan would soon succumb. But she was wrong; the humans would not be defeated by so petty a fever as jealousy.   
  
"How foolish I must look to them, crawling on my belly like a mere snake!" Ayla and her redheaded friend stood over Azala, mocking her with their calm eyes. Yes, those beady eyes, minuscule eyes, too small for their heads, laughing at her, announcing that they were triumphant.   
  
"No..." the former Reptite Queen exclaimed. "It can't be..! Could the heavens truly have sided with the apes?" Her mind raced as to where she went wrong, what she had done to offend the stars above. She had tried innumerable times to protect the planet with her life from the filthy apes and this, this is how she and her kingdom were to be repaid? Those who had endured for several millennia, those who were there from the beginning, and who were thought to be there until the end, were the ones who would be the first sacrifice. "If only I could have waited…it would have been finished..."  
  
"Listen, primates!" Azala shouted above the winds, pushing herself to her limits to get her message across. "Listen, and let it be known! We Reptites fought bravely to the bitter end! Do you understand?!" Her nostrils flared. She would have allowed herself to cry at this point, if it were physically possible, so unstable was her mind.   
  
Ayla looked into the unappreciative eyes of the Reptite with sympathy. "Ayla understand..." she stuttered in her broken English. "The mammal can't even speak as we do," Azala mumbled.   
  
A crimson flash in the sky. The group rushed to the edge of the cliff. An object, which was steadily increasing in size, headed towards them. Ayla and her friends looked at it with amazement. "These foolish humans have no idea what's coming to them." Azala grinned at the idea of the humans, running around, naked, in the bitter cold.   
  
"Soon," she unintentionally began to prophesize, "soon stones of fire will rain down. Flame shall scorch the land. The burned out plains will slowly freeze, ushering in a long," she placed an emphasis on the word long, "cruel ice age. Mwa, ha ha...what a treat! I'm only saddened at the thought of not being able to see it myself! You will wish you went along with us. Mwa ha!"   
  
The group began to try and make sense of Azala's ramblings, but Ayla knew all too well. "Is Lavos.." she began to explain. "Ayla's word. La mean fire. Vos mean big..."   
  
"Wretched primate, she's not as stupid as she looks." Azala began to cough. "Soon, it will be over...soon, there will be no one..." She had taken quite a nasty fall off of the Black Tyranno, and felt her lungs begging for air.   
  
A group of flying creatures began to slowly advance to the group on the cliff. Ayla recognized them almost immediately. "Kino!" Ayla shouted to a distant figure above them. "Hurry, Kino! Lavos come soon!" She gestured wildly to the group. "All ride Dactyl." She shouted to him again. "Kino! Hurry!!"   
  
As the Dactyls began to depart with Ayla and her group, Azala watched them with contempt. "You have disgraced us," she thought. "You Dactyls, who have sided with the humans...Your offspring shall be cursed as being the monkey's slaves. I show no mercy towards you." She began to cough violently once more. But all the Reptites knew that the Dactyls were the most fortunate. The humans treated those who had been exiled from the race with compassion. They were fed when they were hungry, kept cool when it was warm, protected from the hazards of nature and life. Azala knew not what she hated more, their security or their treachery. "You filthy creatures!" she began again. "Fly away, with the damned on your backs! The Queen of the Reptites will never acknowledge you!"   
  
Regrettably, as Ayla pulled away, she could not help but glance at the figure of the Queen on the floor. "I no let you die, Azala!" She and her Dactyl, moving as one, began to descend toward the Reptite.   
  
"Ayla!" Kino warned. "What you do?!"   
  
But she could not be stopped. Her Dactyl landed next to Azala. For the briefest of moments, the Queen and the Dactyl made eye contact. One felt infinite pity, and the other, infinite fear. "Come, Azala!" Ayla pleaded. She began to lift one of Azala's arms up.   
  
"No!" Summoning her last ounce of strength, she withdrew her arm. "Absolutely not! The powers that be have spoken!"   
  
Azala would have loved to come along! No one - no one! - greets Death, not even the Queen of Reptites. But imagine, to be saved by humans! There could not have been a greater ignominy to Azala. She would not allow herself to be turned into a beggar for the humans' amusement. No, she would prefer to die at the place where it would begin.   
  
"Ayla! Hurry!!" Kino begged. "Lavos come!"   
  
Afterward, whenever Ayla reflected on that moment, she would only remember searching for the perfect words, something to placate Azala's tortured soul. She looked into Azala's leaden eyes one last time. "Azala...me not forget..." She turned away quickly, and began heading towards her Dactyl.   
  
Azala had a thought, a sense, a fear. What if the humans could survive the cold? Somehow? Perhaps from the redheaded boy? Such an idea as humans surviving cold was laughable. But, she remembered that it was the boy who had that "Geit Kii" earlier...   
  
She came to a conclusion. "The future..." she began to stammer.   
  
Ayla stopped in mid-flight. "Future? What about future?" She was hoping for good news, hoping in vain that somehow Lavos would not come.   
  
"We...have no future."   
  
Ayla blinked. She began to ride her Dactyl once more. "Lavos still come," she thought. All she had to do was look up at the sky and see the bright star getting larger. She began to think of what Azala had said, and hoped that she would never wish, at any point, that she had died with the Reptites. She shuddered at the thought.   
  
Azala saw the Dactyls getting farther and farther, but wasn't sure if they were leaving, or if her vision was getting dimmer. She shouted to no one, "Good riddance! The earth will cleanse you by itself. Even if it takes...a long time...the earth...will reclaim itself...Lavos will help...yes...We were to live...as one..."   
  
The Queen of Reptites looked up once more. Until the moment It fell, she was the only one to see the Lavos-star up close. Her last thought before Lavos decimated Tyranno Lair and burrowed underground was a vision of humans and Reptites living together, dancing, singing, crying, laughing, and loving. Neither a smile nor a frown appeared on her face, but what can best be described as a smirk. "It will never be." 


End file.
